Vaughn Palmer: Would-be NDP leaders shrink away from poisoned chalice

David Eby was all smiles on election night when he beat out Premier Christy Clark in Vancouver-Point Grey, but the NDP MLA is now looking forward to fatherhood rather than a run at the party leadership.

Photograph by: Vancouver Sun
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VICTORIA — A half-year after New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix announced he would pack it in, the race is still bereft of an officially declared candidate to succeed him.

David Eby became the latest non-entrant Friday. The rookie MLA cut down a campaign that was practically idling at the curb because of the recent discovery that his fiancée was pregnant with their first child. “A happy surprise,” as he put it, and one that made “a no-brainer” of the decision to take himself out of contention. “The kind of father I wanted to be and the kind of leader I’d need to be, these two things are not compatible,” Eby told Vancouver Sun legislative reporter Rob Shaw.

His logic is unassailable. I’ve lost count of the number of politicians who’ve let their political ambitions trump their family interests, and lived to regret it.

Eby’s unexpected decision to bail out follows two other high-profile departures in the past week.

MLA George Heyman, the former head of the public service union, was also touted as a likely candidate. Instead, he too ruled out a candidacy for personal reasons. Indeed, he said “deeply personal reasons,” but did not elaborate.

At about the same time, federal MP Kennedy Stewart was telling my Sun colleague Peter O’Neil that he’d thought it over and decided not to seek the provincial leadership. “I’ve been talking to people for three months,” the political scientist turned politician explained. “It just seems they” — meaning B.C. New Democrats — “want someone from inside the caucus” — meaning one of their provincial MLAs.

He’s not the only one of his federal colleagues to decide not to risk an invasion of provincial turf. Other MPs on the list of no-shows include Nathan Cullen, Fin Donnelly and Peter Julian.

Not an easy transition for a federal member to make. It would mean a cut in pay, as federal MPs make more than the provincial leader of the Opposition. If successful, he or she would be without a seat in the legislature until a provincial NDP MLA could be persuaded to resign and make way for a byelection.

But personal reasons and provincial standoffishness don’t tell the whole story about why so many possible contenders have said “thanks but no thanks” to a bid for the provincial NDP leadership.

As Paul Ramsey, the former NDP cabinet minister turned political pundit, put it this week, there’s a sobering list of reasons why even the most ambitious politician might balk at entering this race.

“Here’s the want ad for the job of NDP leader,” Ramsey told me during an interview this week on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV. “You’ve got an internal party that’s fractured over resource development, over environment, and a whole bunch of other things. It’s won exactly — what is it? — three out of the last 20 elections it contested. It’s a couple million dollars in debt, and its membership is stagnant. Sign up here? I mean that’s a daunting challenge.”

Also, the party would appear to have overreached itself by pegging the non-refundable entry fee at $25,000, high enough to discourage all but the most determined entrants. In the leadership won by Carole James a decade ago, the fee was a mere $3,500 — low enough to generate a field of six candidates.

Worth noting, too, what happened to James during her time as leader. After leading the party to strong showings in two provincial elections, she was forced out by a bitter internal revolt in the fall of 2010.

Would-be candidates for the current leadership could be forgiven for having second thoughts about running because of what happened to the thoroughly decent and loyal James. For all the NDP’s public high-mindedness, the party’s internal politics can be exceptionally petty and vicious.

MLA John Horgan alluded to that concern in explaining his reasons for not seeking the job this time. “I didn’t see fun,” he told reporters last October. “I saw difficulty, I saw acrimony, I saw divisiveness.”

But with so many putative candidates having joined him on the sidelines, Horgan has come under increasing pressure — from those who think he’d be the best candidate and those who’d like to see him make a race of it — to put aside his reservations and run.

One doesn’t hear that from supporters of MLA Mike Farnworth, the presumed front-runner though he has yet to make his candidacy official. Farnworth-ians might wish to consider what happened to the last leader who assumed the top job by acclamation, Mike Harcourt. His hold on the party was never solid because he was seen as having won by default.

With seven months to go before the Sept. 28 leadership vote, there is plenty of time for other candidates to come forward. MLA Rob Fleming is still mulling a bid. There’s talk too of persuading Vancouver school board chairwoman Patti Bacchus, who has lately emerged as one of the sharpest critics of Premier Christy Clark’s treatment of the public schools in general, and teachers in particular.

But in the absence of anyone paying the fee and filing his or her papers, you’ve got to like the joke about the easiest way to produce a stampede of candidates for the leadership. Just have Dix announce that with nobody showing any interest in the job, he’s decided to stay on.

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David Eby was all smiles on election night when he beat out Premier Christy Clark in Vancouver-Point Grey, but the NDP MLA is now looking forward to fatherhood rather than a run at the party leadership.

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